Last night we ran our Arduino Workshop for the first time in a while, and it was a huge amount of fun. We had 2 software developers (plus a very supportive partner!) which made for a unique workshop experience. Rather than focusing on programming basics and syntax, we took a deep dive into how microcontrollers operate at a bare metal level using hardware registers, system resources, and program optimisation.

There was a shared interest in finding out about how the familiar lines of code could be compiled to interact with the Arduino hardware in the way we know and love. The biggest 'aha' moment was just for the simplicity of Arduino as a platform; the fact that in a few hours you could develop a project that could control power devices with a simple hardware and software setup.

Finishing off with our signature data monitoring challenge using the serial port, we went an extra step and added conditions for it to only update when the incoming data changed, adding a layer of button control, and sending serial data from the computer back to the Arduino.